Art By Numbers haven’t even released their debut album, and they’re already receiving a lot of attention. This attention probably initially stemmed from the band’s connection with The Human Abstract, but there’s definitely more to it than that. For those that are curious, Brett Powell (The Human Abstract’s drummer) is the band’s manager and Art by Numbers guitarists Victor Corral and Dustin Georgeson studied with A.J. Minette (also of The Human Abstract). The thing is that any thoughts that the band might be skating by on posts such as the one on The Human Abstract Facebook page that declared Art By Numbers, “the most exciting up and coming progressive band out there,” are put to rest once you hear the album. The band’s upcoming debut, Reticence: The Musical, is deserving of the attention that it is getting regardless of any extraneous circumstances.

This Fresno, California five-piece definitely bring a technical, yet melodic, style of progressive metal that will have people comparing them to everything from The Human Abstract and Protest the Hero to Coheed & Cambria. The thing is that they still have their own sound. For one, the band bring a prominent sense of melody and catchy vocal arrangements that occasionally remind me…

Jadea Kelly is perhaps best known our readers as the voice of Kezia on Protest the Hero’s 2005 album of the same name, but in the ever-expanding Toronto roots music scene her work with the progressive metal outfit is little more than the prologue to her ever-growing solo career.

Eastbound Platform, Kelly’s second album, was released two weeks ago to the day and has already been met with positive reviews from Exclaim! Magazine and CBC Radio—expect SputnikMusic to join these ranks shortly. Praises of her work is warranted, as the album shows the evolution of a once nervous performer who—in her on stage debuts with Protest the Hero—occasionally struggled to find her voice in the band’s often boisterous, hairy-chested performances. Nervous no longer, Jadea has taken takes her soft spoken demeanour and turned it into the quiet confidence of an artist who now bleeds self-assurance (although not literally, I’m sure).

“Never Coming Back” is the lead track off of Eastbound Platform and features a uniquely groove-laden take on a traditional country rock track. On top of Jadea’s stated vocal performance, make note of the interplay between the bass’s walking plod and shifting guitar lines, all of which climax in the tracks’ wind-swept refrain. Listen to the track below.

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As puberty set in, Protest the Hero were coming off of a re-release of 2003’s A Calculated Use of Sound, now retrofitted with the one-off anti-war ‘anthem’ “Soft Targets Dig Softer Graves” wedged awkwardly in the middle of its track list. “Soft Targets”, originally released on one of Underground Operations’ Greetings From the Underground samplers, was written and recorded over a year after the release of A Calculated Use of Sound and it showed. Rody wasn’t shouting anymore. His singing voice still wasn’t where it is now but for the first time he wasn’t simply yelling at the top of his lungs. The band had gotten a little heavier and a little more technical, too; there was less focus on Moe’s drumming and a higher emphasis on the guitar trade-offs between Luke and Tim and Arif had taught himself to finger tap on the bass. But the musical evolution evidenced in “Soft Targets” is unimportant to what I want to touch on. What matters is it was the end of Protest the Hero’s political era.

That became clear when they debuted “A Plateful of Our Dead”, then known simply as “Kezia”. In its infancy, performances of the song would always begin with bassist and lyricist Arif Mirabdolwhatever introducing it with the preface, “this is a song about a little girl standing in front of a firing squad”. When the album finally came out,…